Star Chart
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Set around season five. Ralph has asked Owen on a date. Movies are too cliche and too inefficient for getting to know someone. (Very G rated as the characters are currently ten years old in show canon.)


**This takes place when Ralph and Owen (from Dominoes) are about fourteen (so about eighth grade), which would be season five or season six, depending on when his birthday falls in the year. I totally ship Ralph and Owen once they're old enough to start dating, and I made a Tumblr post recently that was along these lines, so I wanted to expand it in a fic. This was hard to write because I am writing character who are currently ten years old beginning a future relationship and that needs to be done carefully, but I did enjoy the challenge.**

* * *

Walter frowned. "Is something wrong, Ralph?"

The boy sighed. "I don't know."

"You don't know if something's wrong, or you don't know if you want to tell us?"

Ralph shifted his weight on the bar stool. "I might have a problem."

"Something at school?" Paige stopped stirring the pasta sauce and leaned over the counter, resting her arms on it as she regarded her son. Walter stood next to her, his head cocked as he regarded Ralph.

"Not exactly." He rubbed his hands together at the knuckle. "I asked Owen...if he wanted to go out tonight. And he said sure, but..."

Paige's face lit up. "You asked Owen out?"

The lighting wasn't great, but Ralph definitely turned a bit pink. "Yeah."

"I told you," Paige said, elbowing Walter. "I told you back around Christmas time."

"Yeah," Walter said, smiling at Ralph. "What took you so long, buddy?" He asked playfully.

Ralph raised his eyebrows at the same time as his mother slowly shifted her gaze from her son to Walter. It took him a moment to realize why they were both starting at him. "Okay, point taken."

"I don't know what to do tonight," Ralph said. "Sloan told me that when she went on a date with Steven, they went to see Jurassic Planet. But isn't the primary objective of a date to get to know each other and spend quality time together? Speaking during a movie is frowned upon, even if it's discussing the quality of the CGI or score."

"Movies are a pretty common choice for a first date," Paige said. "But you might want to try something else. Something romantic but complimentary to your interests. What do you guys have in common?"

"Oh, that's easy," Walter said. "They're both smart, perceptive, like learning about little known facts that the school system fails to teach..."

"How about astronomy?" Paige said, interrupting Walter and smiling at Ralph. "Take him to the roof of the garage and show him the stars. You know where the telescope is, Happy can help you set...oh wait." She looked at Walter. "She and Toby have that meeting with the adoption agency tonight."

"That's okay," Ralph said. "I can set it up." He smiled. "That's a good idea."

* * *

"I've never been up here," Owen said, turning in a small circle as he surveyed the rooftop.

"I like it up here," Ralph said. "Happy and Toby are up here a lot during the day. But I like it at night. It's peaceful and quiet and it's good to help me clear my head." He set the three ring binder he'd brought with him on the wall.

"Did you know that the sun and the moon appear to be the same size because the sun is roughly the same number of times bigger than the moon as it is times frather from us than the moon?"

 _Yes._ "No, that's really cool," Ralph said. "Do you like astronomy?"

"I do." Owen shrugged. "I don't know much about it though. That moon fact is basically all I've got." He cocked his head. "What can you tell me?"

"Well..." Ralph ran through his favorites in his head, wondering which ones would be the most interesting to Owen. "Mars is in apparent retrograde motion right now," Ralph said. "That means it appears to be moving in the opposite direction as we are – we orbit in the same direction as the sun. Venus and Uranus naturally move in retrograde motion, but Mars moves in prograde motion. But based on the differences in time it takes for Earth and Mars to orbit the sun, at times it appears as if Mars is moving in the opposite direction when you compare it to the position of the stars." He looked over at Owen. "We can't see it, but it is happening right now."

"That's cool." Owen looked up at the sky. "I've always wondered if there is anyone else out there."

"It's statistically likely," Ralph said. "There's over one hundred billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone, each one has a habitable zone, which may be even bigger than our estimates if there exists a life form that isn't dependent on water..." he trailed off. He remembered when Walter would get nervous talking to his mom and would ramble until she stopped him. He cleared his throat.

Owen was still looking up. "I wonder if they have stories about the constellations they see."

"Probably."

"You know, I don't even know them. The names, I mean. I know the Big Dipper, and the North Star..." it was his turn to clear his throat. "Ursa Major and Polaris, I mean. I know some other names, but I'm never able to locate them."

Ralph grinned. "Do you want to know?" He reached over and dragged the three ring binder toward them. Flipping it open, he found the current date and removed the sheet, handing it to Owen. "This has the names of the major constellations and their most prominent stars as they sit today in the Los Angeles sky." He put his hands on Owen's arms and directed him in a quarter turn until he was facing the right way, then reached over and rotated the sheet in the other boy's hands. "Hold it like this. Now it's all laid out in front of us – or above us, rather." Ralph put a finger on one of the stars. "That's Capella. It's the brightest star in the constellation of Auriga. Ptolemy was the first to establish it. It's visible throughout the entire year because it's a circumpolar constellation."

Owen's eyes rose slowly from the laminated sheet up to the sky, squinting slightly, then his facial features relaxed and he grinned. "There!"

Ralph smiled broadly. "Yep!"

"And so this..." Owen glanced down at the paper. "This would be Persius, the W is Cassiopeia...wow!" He let the hand with the sheet fall to his side and he scanned the entire sky. "I can see it. I can see it all." He grinned at Ralph. "This is really cool."

"Good." Ralph grinned back. "Good."

 **I had to make this really, really, really G-rated because I know we all still picture them as ten year olds even though they are almost high schoolers here, but I hope you guys enjoyed it. Feel free to drop me a review and let me know.**


End file.
